Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/285

Rh from an Hellenic building. Close by are the remains of a Greek aqueduct. A ruined church here, called Agia Eirene, is built with squared blocks. The fields are strewn with fragments of pottery.

From Salakko we turned homeward to Kalavarda on the northern coast. On the road to this place I noticed an old tower, built by the Knights, by the side of a water-mill. This place is called Myrtona. It is distant half an hour from Kalavarda. A little before arriving at this village we passed on the left an old ruined church containing slabs of Hellenic marble, but no inscriptions.

At Kalavarda I noticed the process by which cotton is converted into flocks. This is done with a large bow a piece of reed, virga, and a wooden instrument like a reel. The process is called.

The cotton is placed on the reed and laid horizontally at right angles to the bow, the string of which is then struck with the, and the particles of cotton detached by the vibrations of the string are drawn together so as to form a loose rope, which is wound off on the distaff.

In this village I was much interested by finding a number of Greek fictile vases in the peasants' houses. These vases were of various styles. Among them were several platters, plnakes, of a very early period, with geometrical patterns painted in brown on a pale ground.

This kind of ware has been found in the tombs of Athens, Melos, and other parts of Greece, and is thought to be of very remote antiquity; the more so